Album Review: D/Will- Reset

I had the pleasure of attending a small listening party for D/Will's Reset album last month.  I'd delayed reviewing the masterful recording partly because its unconventional nature makes it difficult to analyze.

Only after enduring a new release that's likely to be my least favorite Kansas City album of 2014 did I begin to fully appreciate the subtle brilliance of Reset.

Rather than being obsessed by the shallow topics of marijuana and rap status that consume many of his contemporaries, D/Will engages in a profound examination of spirituality.  Kanye West may be the only hip-hop artist to address the topic of salvation with as much finesse as D/Will.  Yet characterizing Reset as a Christian album wouldn't be accurate.

Reset is a bold reckoning of what it means to reside in America.

D/Will isn't a great rapper but he's an excellent producer.  The surprising array of sounds on Reset enhances the project's cultivated message.  "Meeting With God" relects the album's intent.


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Here's my review of T-Pain's woefully under-attended concert at Crossroads KC.

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I reviewed Nickel Creek's concert at the Uptown Theater.

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I contributed a Local Listen segment about the Phantastics to KCUR's Up To Date.

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Radkey was featured in USA Today.

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Mac Lethal has, as they say, found his lane.  Here's his new Mozart rap.

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John Blake has died.  I bought the violinist's album Twinkling of an Eye as a new release in 1985. 

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Jean Redpath has died.  (Via BGO.)

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The band name and album title of the National Jazz Trio of Scotland's Standards, Vol. III are amusingly misleading.  Bill Wells' project is RIYL: Belle and Sebastian, nuance, Robert Wyatt.  "Surprising Word" isn't the best track on the album, but the video is solid.

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The Messenger's Illusory Blues is RIYL: Kansas, 1975, Renaissance.  Here's the video for “Somniloquist”.

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Action Bronson is hilarious.

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I'm not convinced that Benjamin Booker is all that.  The self-titled album of the current media darling is RIYL: Kings of Leon, NPR, the Black Keys.

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Rittz owns it.

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Bless their metallic hearts.  The current lineup of the stalwart thrash band Overkill sounds better than ever on White Devil Armory, the New Jersey band's seventeenth studio album.  Here's the video for "Armorist".

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The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra's OverTime: Music of Bob Brookmeyer is worthwhile.

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My latest obsession: the music of the Lebanese singer Fairuz.

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"I don't know how you can sit there and listen to that mess."  That's what a member of my compound told me as I was ingesting Wiring, a new all-star jazz collaboration.  RIYL: Vijay Iyer, annoying others, Reggie Workman.

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I spent the remainder of the day cowering under my desk in a fetal position after I watched the videos for Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" and Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" back-to-back last week.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Rodan- Fifteen Quiet Years

Mods and rockers.  East coast or west coast hip hop.  Acoustic Miles and Dylan versus the plugged-in versions of the icons.  The seemingly mandatory obligation to pick a side confounds me.  I never understood why punk/indie-rock and metal had to be mutually exclusive genres.  I love Husker Dü and Judas Priest, Fugazi and Van Halen. 

That's why bands like Rodan appeal to me.  Rodan's three-year existence ended in 1994, before subgenres like metalcore and mathrock became codified.  It's easy to suggest that the members of Rodan were simply in thrall of Sonic Youth and fellow Louisville band Slint, but I hear Rodan's music as a bracing hybrid of metal and punk that contains traces of both the Minutemen and Megadeth.

A press release for Fifteen Quiet Years notes that "the "collection includes the 1994 BBC Peel session, together with all of Rodan's long-out-of-print 7"s and compilation tracks."  It will be released on June 11.  A new interview with the surviving members of Rodan in The Village Voice provides additional context on the project.

Fifteen Quiet Years is highly recommended to listeners nostalgic for the era in which left-of-the-dial college radio served as a vital lifeline and for a slightly younger audience eager to explore the sounds that inspired bands like the Appleseed Cast and Cursive.


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Marva Whitney's God, the Devil & James Brown: Memoirs of a Funky Diva was published last month.

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"No Touching" is putting OoberGeek on the map. (Via the Mills Record Company Blog.)

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The video for Hospital Ships' "Servants" is messed up (in a good way).

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The Grisly Hand is giving away a live version of "Chucky".

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I misjudged Rittz.  The Strange Music signee sounds pretty good with Mike Posner on "Switch Lanes".

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Myron & E's "If I Gave You My Love" is RIYL Northern Soul, 1968, Jerry Butler.

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Howard Reich wrote a profile of Bob Koester.

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"… but the little girls understand."  I Heart Local Music documents Thursday's sold-out show headlined by Marina and the Diamonds.

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Scout Niblett's "Gun" is remarkable.  RIYL: Heartless Bastards, Liz Phair, Lenny Kaye.

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Wut.

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Chuck D is angry.  (And I like it.)

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)